


The Paladin and the Strawberry

by OtherCat



Series: Cracked Crossovers [12]
Category: Bleach, Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22270324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: Ista, Royina-dowager of Chalion and saint of the Bastard finds herself on a difficult and confusing mission when she encounters Ichigo Kurosaki, a soul possessing the fifteen year old son of a minor Roknari noble. The Bastard has an important mission for both of them: to find relics of His father, the sorcerer-saint who was His Mother’s Champion.
Series: Cracked Crossovers [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/64490
Comments: 23
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

> **“...the sorcerer must be bound with prayers to the Father of Winter and curses from the Mother of Summer who has a particular hatred of sorcerers, for the great Indignity She suffered, that engendered the Master of all demons. These prayers and curses must be painted on good linen and affixed to the body of the sorcerer at those parts of the body significant to the Gods of Seasons so that the demon may be bound to it’s rider, or the sorcerer.” –The Banishment of Demons**

* * *

After a year of traveling the Jokonon countryside, disposing of demons where Ista came upon them, the Quadrene divines were beginning to seek her out for assistance. There were still debates, there could not help but be debates, given the differences between Quintarian and Quadrene theology, but they were now more…trusting of her abilities via the Bastard.

(They still had no good opinion of the Bastard, who as far as she could tell found their slights on His Person amusing, except where His followers were concerned. Then He became extremely foul. Her entourage often grew by several dozen as she journeyed through Jokona then shrank by that same amount as she swung closer to Chalion in her travels.)

Quadrene divines often accompanied her entourage, minor saints and scholar-divines of the Four. The divines switched with each other like couriers handing off a sealed letter. They closely observed each removal of a demon from its possessor as if there were some trick they could learn from her. She was both surprised at their earnest desire to have an alternative method of returning a demon to its Master that didn’t involve burning the possessor alive, and worried that the divines might make the fatal mistake of forcing miracles through ritual. Ista found herself speaking on the subject frequently, though she wasn’t sure how effective she was. The wall of mutual heresy was thick, and would need to be attacked by greater artillery than a royina-doorkeeper.

The current divine was a serious young man of the Father’s Order named Arion Ido, who spent a great deal of time arguing with dy Cabon. (They all argued with dy Cabon. The arguments with Arion seemed particularly vehement, veering between justice, the theological splitting point between the Quintarian and Quadrene faiths. It had come to the point where Illvin had suggested not quite jokingly to chain them together and leave them in a room with one glass and a bottle of rotgut.)

Dy Cabon and Arion were having the third round of one of their arguments on the road to the next town when riders approached. The entourage came to a stop as her escorts conferred with the riders. Presently Foix rode up with a pair of soldiers wearing the colors and devices of a minor Jokonan clan. One soldier was in his middle years, dark and weathered, green-hazel eyes a startlement in his dark face. The other soldier was much younger, dark of hair and eye, trying hard to look stoic and calm. “Royina, these are soldiers in the retinue of the lord of Mahut. They come to seek your aid concerning the lord’s son, who has come into possession of a demon.”

The older soldier bowed. “Lady, it is as your armsman says” the soldier says in heavily accented Ibran. “A month ago, our lord’s son began behaving in a peculiar manner. He said and did strange things, and strange things would happen around him. We would have gone to the divines, but the boy--or perhaps the demon--immediately took his mother and sisters hostage and drove his father and servants from the keep. No one can enter, and we fear for the lives of our lady and the children. When we heard that the Sorcer--that is, yourself lady, was coming to this part of Jokona, we took the chance to seek your aid.”

“Sorceress” was one of the names that had gone ahead of Ista, throughout her travels in Jokona, the Quadrenes not being able to distinguish between the Demon-God’s saint and a sorcerer. There was also “Mouth of Hell,” which was her own (or the Bastard’s) fault, and “The Royina-Witch.” She took no offense at these names, as long as she was permitted to travel freely in Jokona and perform her God-given task of sending demons back to their Master. Ista nodded. “Of course I will help,” she said. “Please allow my armsman to escort you to my seneschal, to give him a more detailed report.”

“My thanks, Royina,” the older soldier said, and allowed himself to be led off by Foix.

They camp earlier than usual that evening, and invite the soldiers to dinner. Conversation was sober, and full of speculations about the demon and plans to approach the keep. Ista and dy Cabon questioned the soldiers, wanting to know where the noble’s son had acquired the demon. Had he encountered a strangely behaving animal while hunting? Been near an attempt to exorcise a demon, present at an execution or other death, fighting bandits?

The older soldier whose name was Balan, answered the questions as well as he was able, with occasional comments from Dursed, the younger soldier, who had apparently been a friend to the boy. -the young lord Uda became ill,- Dursed said in polite Roknari. -A sickness during the spring. He recovered quickly, but seemed uneasy afterward, and when he became uneasy it became almost unbearable to be in the same room with him. Or things would break. Or burst into flame.- Both soldiers responded in the negative concerning the most common ways of acquiring a demon. They did however report that it had been the “unbearable feeling” that had driven the staff and the boy’s father. Out of the keep, and that same feeling is what kept anyone from approaching it.

When Ista sleeps that night, she dreams of two boys arguing with each other. They seem at first to be mirror images of the other. Two boys with opaque white skin, and white hair dressed in strange clothing; black and white robes with stiff collars that folded in the front and were tied with sashes, and divided skirts. One boy however, is sharp of tooth and gold of eye, while the other has eyes of brown, and teeth that seem normal and human. “Whatever you think you are--” the more feral boy say angrily, in a voice that sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a well.

“A God,” the more human appearing boy says with a wide smirk. (Ista realizes this boy is somehow the Bastard. She would recognize that smile anywhere.)

“We’ve fucked over gods before you bastard. I will go right through you if you don’t let me go.”

The Bastard smiles at the other boy, spreads his hands, open and weaponless, but somehow also challenging. “You can try again if you like, little brother. You’ll still get the same results.”

“You are not my fucking brother,” the other boy growls. “I need to fucking go to my ‘roya’ you asshole. How the fuck is he going to get anywhere without his goddamn horse?”

“A roya is enough of a burden for a boy,” the Bastard says. “How could he carry the warhorse as well?”

“King--roya could carry me and the old man around just fine. Don’t see why that brat couldn’t.”

“Your roya was born with both a horse and rider,” the Bastard says. “He fairly overflowed with the strength to bear you. Uda’s soul, strong as it is, could not bear both you and your roya.”

“Well maybe you should have got someone a little stronger,” the boy growls. His eyes narrow. “Where’s the Old Man?”

“Do you not remember?” the Bastard asks, with an almost gentle sympathy.

“Pretty obvious I don’t,” the boy says, a strange skull mask, striped on one side appearing and disappearing on his face. The boy’s voice is tense and full of a fearful sort of anger. “I’m here, roya’s there, where the fuck is the Old Man?”

“The rider answered the call of his roya,” the Bastard says. “There was a battle, do you remember?”

The feral boy’s hands clenched and his mouth twisted, half sneer, half grimace of anguish. “No,” he says, his voice hard and angry, but also frantic, full of fear. “He didn’t. We didn’t give in. We were still fighting. Roya wouldn’t give in to that bastard!”

“You misunderstand,” the Bastard says gently. “By rider, I don’t mean your roya. I mean your ‘Old Man.’”

The boy’s face twisted and he screamed in rage, terrible and inhuman, the strange mask of bone appearing as he charged the Bastard. Ista felt an immediate panic, an illogical protectiveness, as if she could somehow combat the furious creature attacking the god. However she was frozen in place as the creature--now impossibly tall with horrific claws and a wild mane of red hair--lunged at the Bastard, who met the attack, and turned it aside, spinning the monster away from Himself. The beast lunged twice more, and each time was diverted elsewhere. On the third time it was pinned, and the beast howled--not in rage, but in a terrible grief.

“I am sorry,” the Bastard says.

There were so many questions that Ista wanted to ask, but she faded away before she could ask them.

* * *

“Brother, what are you doing?” Raheya asks, coming into the kitchen where Uda is attempting to attempt to cook with the assistance of the ghost. (It is not going very well at all, even with assistance.)

“Making dinner, or trying to,” Uda says. “We can both cook, more or less, and since we drove everyone away, the least we can do is make dinner.” Everyone that is, except Uda’s mother and sisters. Ichigo had been insistent on that. Uda had not been happy about it, not wanting to essentially hold them hostage, but Ichigo had been determined. (Ichigo had been convinced that the priests, not being able to burn Uda, might burn his mother and sisters instead. Why he didn’t feel this way about Uda’s _father_ , Ichigo wouldn’t explain beyond “if he’s anything like mine, he’ll be fine.”)

“Are you sure you can cook?” Raheya asks skeptically. She approaches the hearth, and move the pan and swings the over boiling pot further from the fire. The contents of the pan were a mix of meat and vegetables, and what was cooking in the pot seemed to be barley.

“Ichigo says he’s used to slightly different equipment and ingredients, and also his sister is the better cook.”

“Demons have sisters?” Raheya asks. “Who cook?”

Uda shrugs, uncomfortable now. He can see them in his head now. Twins, but not identical. One brown haired and brown eyed. She was gentle, but very strong. The other was black haired and darker of eye and fierce tempered. Their names were Yuzu and Karin. He could feel how much Ichigo cares about them. “He isn’t a demon or any such elemental creature,” Uda says. “He was a living person once.”

“He’s a ghost? That’s not any better, Uda,” Raheya says, disturbed.

_“I’d say that’s fair, except I almost got you burned at the stake,”_ Ichigo says. _“They were going to burn you. At the stake.”_ Uda can hear the bewilderment in Ichigo’s voice, and the anger. Not as angry when he’d first realized what the divines were there for, but still angry. _(“I’m not letting you burn your son to death,”_ Ichigo had said to Uda's father and mother, pushing through to speak to speak through Uda. Then a great many things had happened at once, resulting in everyone in the keep except for himself, his mother and sisters being driven out. No one, thank the gods of the seasons had been hurt, but then, Ichigo as angry as he was, had’t wanted to hurt anyone.)

“Well, how are demons sent back to their master where you’re from?” Uda asks, and realizes he did it out loud when his sister gives him a strange look.

_“Non-fatally! Well, usually. As far as I know? But generally no burning people alive is involved. Also usually,”_ Ichigo says. There are images from Ichigo, some of them are of what Uda assumes are divines praying over a person, or sometimes an object. Other images are of figures in robes, armed with swords, and a very specific image of a dark haired boy a few years older than Uda, armed with a strange bow made of light. _“That’s Ishida,”_ Ichigo says helpfully, and also a little sadly. This is something Uda is going to want to ask Ichigo about, later. 

Raheya is giving him an expectant, questioning look. “He says demons aren’t banished the same way where he’s from, at least mostly,” Uda says. “And he’s sorry about what happened.”

Raheya huffs out a breath. “Well good. He wouldn’t happen to know how to banish himself, would he?”


	2. Chapter 2

> **“…The legendarium regarding the saint of the Mother who worked Her miracle of the soul on the sorcerer-lord describes the saint as beautiful, and says that the sorcerer-lord was beguiled by his beauty. Can we likewise suppose that the saint was beguiled or otherwise moved by the sorcerer-lord, to freely offer his soul to the demon? I feel the answer is yes, though it is described as a sacrifice, for do we not sacrifice some portion of ourselves, our time, our hearts to those we love?” --An Investigation of Out of Season Loves, Soria dy Garuz, Order of the Bastard, Ibra**

The kid was holding on, but Ichigo wasn’t sure how much longer he had before he cracked. The past few months since Ichigo had found himself in the kid’s head had been rough on both of them. Uda had been terrified and Ichigo had been confused, angry and full of grief. (He had failed. Yhwach had defeated him, had destroyed the world, collapsing Life and Death in upon itself. His world was gone, and he somehow still existed.) 

Just when they had almost reached some kind of balance, the kid’s parents had brought in priests. Ichigo hadn’t necessarily been _against_ the priests exorcising him. The kid didn’t need Ichigo’s nightmares in his head. The kid didn’t need to feel that overwhelming horror looming, the things Ichigo didn’t want to think about just yet, and about things the kid didn’t need to see. (Uda swearing up, down and sideways he was a warrior just made it worse somehow. Like going on a brief, safe patrol or being a herd guard were the same as fighting Hollows or Aizen, or the Sternritter, as if that was in any way comparable. The kid had received more and harder training in combat since he was a much younger kid, but no. It was in no way comparable to the apocalyptic battles Ichigo had faced.)

If had been an exorcism as Ichigo understood an exorcism, Ichigo wouldn’t have cared, even if it destroyed him, instead of sending him to whatever “Soul Society” that might exist. If anything like the Soul Society might exist. (Ichigo hadn’t seen anything like a Shinigami. He hadn’t seen anything like a Hollow either. There were ghosts, but they didn’t seem to be very communicative most of the time, and they didn’t have chains.) He and Uda were getting along, but the kid didn’t need him making him a metaphysical target if there _were_ Hollows out there somewhere, or something worse, like the demons the kid had been worried about.

It hadn’t been an exorcism. 

Uda’s parents had sent for the priests, and they were going to burn him alive. The kid had been brave in the face of his family’s grief, and the priests who were getting ready to burn him. He hadn’t fought them, tried to tell Ichigo it was for the best, and that they’d both be free, surely. _“You don’t want to die, any more than I do,”_ Ichigo had said to the kid. _“Do you?”_

_“There’s no other way!”_ the kid had said. _“Demons only leave when their riders die. I would think the same would hold true for a ghost.”_

_“Let’s put it this way, do you want to live more than you want to get rid of me?”_

_“I shouldn’t,”_ the kid said. _“To be a sorcerer, or whatever this is, is to be damned.”_

_Then I’m really,_ really _sorry for what I’m about to do,_ Ichigo had replied, and pushed to the fore, tucking the kid into his inner world. The kid had been completely knocked off balance, since Ichigo had never done anything like that before. (Any time Ichigo had been in the fore had been during nightmares, or the first few days when the kid had been sick.) Uda had an impressively filthy mouth, shouting from an inner world like some kind of temple with a garden around it, only upside down. 

It had been instinct to pull his hand down over his face, and he had felt an actual pang over the absence of his Hollow when no mask appeared. Nothing had happened, but _they_ didn’t know something was supposed to have happened so it didn’t matter. **“I’m not letting you burn your son to death,”** he had said to Uda’s father and mother. From there, he flashstepped Uda’s mom and sisters away from the courtyard of the keep; he locked them in Uda’s mother’s rooms. Then he dropped his reiatsu, driving everyone out of the keep. Uda’s father’s guards attempted to rally, to shoot him with crossbows, but he was too fast for them and despite their intention to kill their lord’s heir, they _really_ didn’t want to hurt Uda. The last person he kicked out was Uda’s father. He was half collapsed on the ground, but still conscious, and furious.

“If you harm my wife and daughters, demon, I’ll make you pay, no matter what form you wear,” Uda’s father grits out between clenched teeth.

**“I’m not going to hurt Uda’s mom or sisters, m’hendi,”** Ichigo says, speaking through Uda, and tacking on the honorific at Uda’s silent insistence. **“My name is Kurosaki Ichigo, and I’m not going to let _you_ harm Uda.”**

“If you truly meant my son no harm, you would not have done this,” Uda’s dad said. “Instead, you would have freed his soul.”

**“Yeah, but he’d be _dead_. If I could get out of his head I would, I _tried_. If the only way I can get out is if the boy dies, then I’m staying right where I am. Now, get out.” **With that, Ichigo hauled Uda’s father to his feet, and marched him out of the gates, which he closed and barred after some fiddling with the mechanisms.

Uda had been furious with him, when Ichigo let him out of his inner world. Ichigo hadn’t much cared, and stayed in the background, except to keep an eye on the kid. This had annoyed the kid, of course. “ _I’m not going to jump out a window or stand where I might get shot,”_ he’d grumbled.

_“I was at one point also fifteen,”_ Ichigo had said. “ _Also, I know what it’s like having an asshole who thinks he knows everything, in your head; or just having an asshole in your head. I also know what it feels like to sacrifice yourself for something that’s absolutely necessary. You think being burned at the stake is absolutely necessary. As the adult here, I’m saying no, that’s not happening.”_

_“You are only a few years older than me! Still a boy yourself! Have you even reached your majority?”_

_“Don’t care, I’m the adult. I am more adult than your mother and father combined. I am more adult than your grandmother, or the old dude butler guy that runs everything here.”_

_“You are delusional,”_ The kid said silently, still annoyed, but also unwillingly amused. “And Yuhad is the _seneschal_. Not a butler.” This time he spoke out loud.

_“God, I’d like to be delusional. I want to wake up in a nice safe hospital with my sisters sleeping in chairs by my bed, or playing phone games. And most of the stupid shit I’ve gone through being some kind of weird stress meltdown.”_

_“Just most of it?”_ Uda asked.

_“Yeah,”_ Ichigo said. _“Not all of it was terrible. And I made friends. Some of them had sticks up their asses though.”_

Uda snorted out loud at that. 

It had taken a few days, but Ichigo was able to talk Uda into helping him make a peace offering for Uda’s mother and sisters. (Uda had previously spent most of his time avoiding his mother’s quarters, where his mother and sisters were camped except for furtive attempts to avoid _Uda._ ) Ichigo was relieved when Uda’s older sister Raheya made an overture, and helped Uda cook and carry the food to his mother’s rooms.

Lady Sahria Mahut was less relieved when Uda made his appearance with Raheya, nor was she pleased when Uda entered her living room, which had a little writing desk. She seemed to be helping Uda’s younger sister with her letters. Concern warred with anger and fear on her face as she looked at Uda, but that melted into dismay when Uda went to his hands and knees and _apologized for Ichigo._ The anger on the woman’s face melted into tears. “My son,” she said in a choked voice, getting up in a swish of skirts. “My poor son.” She caught hold of Uda, and drew him to his feet. “Are you my son, and not the demon?”

“I remain your son, mother. Ichigo is no demon, and he no more wants to be within me, than the reverse,” Uda says, voice shaking.

“Uda says he’s some kind of ghost,” Raheya said.

“Is that supposed to be better?” Uda’s mother said, echoing something Raheya had said much earlier.

_“I think it’s better,”_ Ichigo couldn’t help but interject.

Uda made an irritated (and hilarious) noise of exasperation that made Uda’s mother frown at him. Then he was instantly embarrassed as the frown became more stern. (This was also hilarious.) “Ichigo made an obnoxious comment, that’s all, mother.”

_“It wasn’t that obnoxious,”_ Ichigo pointed out.

Lady Sahria’s brows lifted. “Does he often make comments? Much of your behavior has an explanation.”

“We had to learn to talk quietly,” Uda said with considerable chagrin.

“Would this not-a-demon be willing to speak with me?” Lady Sahria asked. She signs herself before saying, “Though I fear my curiosity is more than a little heretical.”

“ _Yeah,”_ Ichigo says. _“I wanted to try explaining to the priests, but that wasn’t going to happen.”_

Uda more or less faithfully conveyed that to his mother, who gave Uda a haunted, guilty-struck look. “I can’t apologize,” she said, in what Ichigo was able to recognize as a very polite mode. It was higher to lower, but he wasn’t sure how high or how low yet, and Uda was too surprised to clue him in. “We acted only as we knew how. Demons are a corruption, destroying all they touch.”

Ichigo wants to argue, almost reflexively. He is the guy who rescues enemies as much as he rescues friends, because once you’re done fighting them, sometimes they’re your friend. Even Hollows sometimes. (Yes GetaBoushi, he recognized the irony inherent in wanting to defend the arrancar. He probably wouldn’t help the Sternritter, because fuck them.) He doesn’t say anything. Uda catches some of what he’s thinking anyway. “He doesn’t want to disrespect you, but he doesn’t agree about what happened, and he’s determined to protect me. Also, he says that he’s made allies out of former enemies, and has often found worth in even the most terrible.” Ichigo can feel Uda smile. “He says he will decide how he feels about demons when he actually fights one.”

_“I didn’t say that,”_ Ichigo protested.

_“Close enough!”_ Uda replied.

“I see,” Lady Sahria says, with a curious, piercing look.

Uda and his sisters have dinner in the sitting room, and Uda conveys Ichigo’s answers to his mother’s questions. Uda answers the questions as best as he’s able. There are a lot of things Uda just doesn’t understand, and Ichigo can’t really explain. Technology is hard. The Soul Society is extremely hard. Ichigo’s past few weeks before waking up on a new world, in what was probably a new universe, inside the head of a kid was unbelievably hard. The sisters join in with their own questions. Mali wants to argue metaphysics, as much as a seven year old is capable of arguing metaphysics. (Ichigo is wrong about everything.) Raheya wants to know about the technology and medicine of his world.

* * *

It’s two weeks before they reach Mahut.

They are met three days away from Mahut by Liss, who brings back letters and reports from Visping, as well as spoken messages from Iselle and other members of Ista’s family. “Dear royina,” Liss said with a cheerful mien, after handing off her letters to Illvin. “I bring greetings, and many, many delicate questions about certain rumors!”

“Oh no,” Ista said, flustered despite herself. She settled on the camp cot in the tent she shared with Illvin. Her family in all their concern for her, even now, made her feel stifled. “I have a feeling about what those rumors may be.” Did they disapprove of Illvin, of her for taking him as a lover? She did not care, except for where she did. “What have they said?”

“Oh, your royal daughter mostly wants to know whether she now has a stepfather, and your sister in law when the wedding will be.”

“Those questions are not too unreasonable,” Illvin said with studied amuse idleness as he sorted through the letters and reports. “At least it isn’t threats from your brother and your son in law.”

“I suppose that’s good,” Ista said. “Though however reasonable the questions are…” she trailed off. “I still feel like an erring child in that they need to ask.”

“Well, you needn’t answer, royina,” Liss said with absolutely wonted firmness. “I never answered questions like that if I didn’t choose, and if I didn’t, surely a royina could be no different.”

Ista smiled at that. There had been a visit to Foix’s family, and there had been an explosion of sorts between Foix suddenly being a Temple sorcerer with a courier-girl turned lady-in-waiting sweetheart. Liss had handled it with a certain stubborn charm that eventually won over Foix’s father, sister and aunts, if not quite his mother. (Honestly Ista felt Elen dy Gura was more disturbed by the demon than by Liss, if it had been Liss alone, it would have been easier to accept a recently ennobled sweetheart without the chaser of a son in possession of a demon.) “I will follow your example in this, dear Liss,” Ista said. She wasn’t able to help giving Illvin a look, feeling half guilty. “Marriage is not something I’m quite ready for, and I find the questioning importunate.”

“Whatever question I might ask, I am content to await the answer,” Illvin said. He gave Ista a smile that was both reassuring, and wicked. “Or you could ask instead, for the novelty, for I am ever at your service.”

Ista smiled back, feeling a little giddy. Someday, yes, but not yet; she wasn’t ready to ask, or be asked. Marriage was still that looming horror, the darkness of a curse, the darkness of a basement. Someday maybe she would ask him. Or simply say _“yes, let’s get married.”_

“What of other, more specific questions from dy Gura, Liss?” Ista had asked, teasingly.

Liss had ducked her head with a little grin. “I want to talk to him about it. I don’t want to leave your service, so I’ve put off asking, though I think he wants to ask me.”

“You are indispensable, Sera dy Teneret,” Illvin said, amused. “If he tried to insist you leave service and become a modest wife, he might find _himself_ leaving the royina’s service.”

Mahut was a small border keep, besieged by its own people. Rough camps have been set up all around its walls. As far as Ista could tell, no one is currently making an attempt on the walls, and are in fact, avoiding them. There was something very strange about those walls, a kind of black haze obscuring the stone like fog. It obscured the walls, and shimmered in the air above the towers. It did not feel like a demon. It felt like a soul, if a soul were grown so large that it had expanded beyond its fleshly envelope.

One soul, Ista wondered, or two? She recalled the dream she’d had, with the two boys, one of them the Bastard. She’d had two more dreams of the Bastard since then, both with the strange monster-boy. One had been the boy demanding that she let him go, since she was apparently in charge of the door. He was very rude about it. She had turned him away (with some trepidation for the teeth and claws) but the boy had huffed, muttered rudeness under his breath and stalked off. The second dream had been strangely pensive, a wandering conversation where he nearly begged her to let him go to his “roya.”

“There is nowhere for you to go,” Ista had told him. “Spirit needs matter to enclose it, or generate it.”

The boy had given her a stubborn look. “That asshole needs me,” he had said insistently. “He’d mope and cry all the time because he feels too much about everything without me to kick him into action.”

“Are you speaking of the demon possessing the Mahut heir?” Ista asked, seeking clarification.

The boy had laughed, his voice strange and crackling. “ _He’s_ not the ‘demon.’ That’s me, I’m the Hollow. I’m also the zanpakuto. Zangetsu, but also Shiro.”

“I’m not familiar with the terms you’re giving me, could you explain?” Ista had asked. The boy proceeded to give her a wandering, profanity laced lesson in Shinigami, zanpakuto, Hollows, Quincies and his own very unique existence. He talked about another entity he referred to as “the Old Man” who had impersonated him, but had actually been the part of Ichigo that was “Quincy” and connected to the Quincy roya. (As she understood it. Shiro’s explanation sounded as horrifying as what Joen had done to her children.) Ichigo had apparently felt both Shiro and the Old Man were his zanpakuto. Shiro certainly missed him.

“Ichigo needs me,” Shiro said, repeated. “There has to be a way for the door to go both ways.”

“Shiro, you’d be asking me to possess someone, or something,” Ista said. “My job as I understand it is to send demons to my God, or discern if the person in possession of the demon is capable of becoming a Temple-sorcerer. You are asking me--or rather the Bastard, because this is His miracle, not a magical spell--to do the opposite.”

“I don’t want to ask him,” Shiro said, and it had been so purely youthful whining that Ista hadn’t been able repress a laugh. He glared, strange black and gold eyes reminding her he wasn’t…human. “He’s a complete _bastard._ ”

Yet still she couldn’t help the amusement. “Yes, He is. There is surely a reason you are here and not with your ‘roya’,” she says. “You must ask Him.”

Shiro shrugged, suddenly defensive, and not looking at her at all. “Already know,” he muttered. “I’m a parasite. Ichigo’s mom came down with a bad case of me, and would have died if not for Ichigo’s dad. Without him, there wouldn’t have been any balance and I would have eaten her. But I went to Ichigo. _He_ was okay and already balanced out. The kid isn’t. I might accidentally eat him.” At Ista’s horrified look he said. “He’d still exist. He just wouldn’t be independent of me unless I got konsou, and good luck performing a soul funeral on the actual zanpakuto!”

Ista had woken up from that dream with a headache, her head buzzing with unfamiliar terms and metaphysics. It had left her with a great deal to think about, and confer about with dy Cabon and Illvin. She gave a much more limited report to Arion Ido. (Who had frowned, and said little but wrote many notes.)

They are greeted with caution by the lord of Mahut, a tall man only a few years younger than Ista, with premature gray at his temples. He gave them an area to set up their tents and invited them to dinner, though with a certain amount of embarrassed humility, saying in accented Ibran, “To my dismay, Mahut is unable to provide for you as a guest in such a way that meets your station, royina-dowager, but I can at least provide you a seat at my own table.”

She had thanked him graciously, and conversation turned toward the strange siege. She questioned the lord of Mahut about the possession, how the demon had driven everyone, even slaves out of the keep. She spoke to the Quadrene divines next, wanting to know what they had seen or sensed. (They had a tendency to direct their replies to Arion Ido instead, as if speaking to her, the Quintarian and “sorceress” were somehow contaminating.)

After the conference with the priests, and dinner, Ista found herself studying the keep. From the walls she could see someone looking back. He was about fifteen years old, dark hair braided and then bound back in a tail. Overlapping the first boy is a second boy dressed in the same high collared robe that folded in front that Shiro had worn, only black with white trim, and a white belt. The second boy’s hair is much shorter, a vibrant shock of ginger. The second boy’s stance is protective, angry, and Ista can’t quite imagine him “crying all the time,” the way Shiro had accused.


	3. Chapter 3

> **“…And I beheld the Mother, grieving and round with Foulness that threatened to burst forth upon the land. The Daughter of Spring wept to see Her Mother in such sad estate, and the Son of Autumn cried out in rage. I fare trembled at the sound and threw myself upon my face crying out in horror how this could have come to pass. And the Father of Winter said: To trust a sorcerer is ever a folly.” –Quadrene Book of the Faith, Advent of the Bastard**

Shiro didn’t remember waking up, not the first time. He had found himself lying on his back in a void/a vast room/a plain in the desert under a swath of stars like the Milky Way. It had been in all of those places at once and he had been dazed/weighed down by grief/full of rage and terror. (But unable to act) It had been silent, a heavy blanket covering him, muffling everything. He had not woken up. He had always been staring at the stars/the ceiling/into the void. He had always been alone.

His first thought had been: _where is my king?_

His second thought had been: _where is the Old Man?_

He really didn’t have answers for either of those questions. The one who did have the answers wasn’t much help in giving them. Ichigo was out of reach (for now? Please let it only be for now.) And the Old Man was…gone. He was just gone, sucked back into Ywhach before he destroyed the three worlds.

(Where was he now, if the three worlds were gone?)

“We defied him. I know we defied him to the end. Is that all we did? But what the fucking use is defiance without victory?” Shiro asks out loud, pacing through a desert that was also the halls of a castle, and a freezing void full of distant stars. (He imagines the three worlds falling away into the void, dissolving into dust along with everyone Ichigo loved.)

He fought a being calling itself a god, who had taken the shape of Ichigo. (Except for the eyes, eyes you could fall into, eyes that could see through you and know everything about you. Eyes that had been like the final transformations Aizen had gone through, like Ywhach’s thousands of eyes peering from every angle and time. Yet somehow, that gaze had not been terrifying. There had nothing but kindness and sympathy there.)

They had fought, and Shiro has his ass handed to him. There had been a feeling that the being that called itself a god had just been humoring him, patiently waiting for him to tire himself out. (It should have reminded him of Aizen, or even Urahara, but it didn’t. There was nothing smug or superior about it, just patient.) “Little brother, I am sorry,” he had said. “One horse, one rider, especially in your case.”

Of course, he’d gone to the bright and shining woman when he’d seen her. Somehow he’d known she could be his ticket out of this nowhere place. She hadn’t been very cooperative. Small and weak seeming, nothing at all like a warrior or someone who had ever been a warrior, yet she’d dismissed him with an absolute strength he couldn’t defy. He spoke to her a second time, and she explained further why she wouldn’t do it.

(He felt like a kid who’d tried the “ask mom after dad says no” trick. He imagined Ichigo giving him shit about it, like they were siblings…though they weren’t really like that. They were horse and rider. Shiro might be a particularly fractious steed, and Ichigo might be a shit rider if he wasn’t pushed, but that’s how they were. No fancy cantering to music, graceful jumps or Lipizzaner bullshit here. He was a quarter ton of half-tamed homicide, the bull in the china shop.)

The shining woman sends him back to talk to the bastard, who turns out to be _called_ The Bastard. This time He looks like Grimmjow, hands stuffed in His pockets and comfortably slouched against a wall. The eyes are the same searing blue, but also with a strange and shifting depth to them. The hole is missing, it’s all muscle and a faded scar. “Little brother,” the Bastard says in Grimmjow’s voice. “I could have told you she’d say no.” The tone says, _dumbass._

“Stop calling me that,” Shiro says.

“What should I call you?” Bastard-cos-playing Grimmjow asks. “Human and not--”

“I’m the _Hollow_ ,” Shiro says.

“You’re like me, in a lesser way,” the Bastard says.

“Like hell I’m _lesser,_ ” Shiro snaps, deliberately jumping on the wrong thing. At the same time…shit. He feels a chill at something that was less than a memory. Something that wasn’t really his at all, just inherited. (He isn’t really the Hollow named White. He was the descendent; a plant grown from a runner after the mother plant had been reduced to a husk. He was Ichigo as much as he was himself or Ichigo’s zanpakuto, or the Hollow.) It’s an almost-memory of death and becoming and then binding. It’s the memory of sleep and the dream of forgetting.

“Human and not-human,” the Bastard says, amused. “Four square, but the fifth for leverage, so you are also like the world, in a way.”

“And that makes me like you,” Shiro says in a flat tone.

“No, I’m the _fifth_ ,” the Bastard says with a familiar smirk full of pointed teeth. “And yes. I am human in part, demon in another part, and in a third part, divine--but in no part can I lift the tiniest grain of sand in the world of matter without aid. My Ista is one such who aids me, as an example.”

“Is that the shining lady?” Shiro asks.

Grimmjow-Bastard nods. 

“And you want Ichigo to help you, am I right? That’s why you put him in that kid.”

“Close,” Grimmjow-Bastard says. “I want Uda to help; I want you both to help Uda.”

“Yeah, but you won’t let me go, and she won’t,” Shiro says. There’s a thousand questions he wants to ask. Questions he knows that Ichigo would want to ask. Why was he here? What world was this? Was anyone else here somehow? He doesn’t care about most of the questions, but he knows that Ichigo would.

“It will be your time soon,” Grimmjow-Bastard says.

* * *

There was something going on in the camp, but Uda wasn’t sure what it was. It was a small party joining the encampment, bearing the arms of Chalion. This is confusing at first, particularly the way the new party is greeted with all respect by his father and his father’s men. Among the new party was a blonde woman all in white and he was filled with a sort of amazed bewilderment. “The Royina-Witch,” he says. “That’s the Royina-Witch!”

 _“And who is that?”_ Ichigo asks curiously.

Uda explains quickly. How the Dowager Princess of Jokona had acquired a demon, and had summoned more demons and entrained them to her servants, from there intending to conquer the heretics. The Princess had been foiled by Ista dy Chalion, the Dowager Royina of Chalion, who herself was a sorceress and released the sorcerers from their bondage. From there the Royina-Witch had spent the past year driving away demons and defeating sorcerers. (Despite herself being a sorcerer, which made the stories confusing. Of course it was said that demons were incapable of working together, so perhaps that had something to do with that.) “She’s a Quintarian heretic, and an especial servant of the demon god,” Uda says, feeling a little breathless. “But it’s said that she casts out demons.”

Ichigo is quiet for a moment. _“And what about ghosts?”_ he asks.

Uda hesitates. “It should not be different,” he says. “I’m sure you would be taken up by one of the gods, and not fade into damnation.” 

_“I don’t_ know _any of your gods,”_ Ichigo points out. _“And I’m pretty sure they don’t know me.”_

They argue companionably over whether the gods would know Ichigo or not, and continue their walk.

The next day the sorceress herself approaches the gates of the fort. She’s accompanied by a lady in waiting, and a single armsman. There is something strange about the horse the sorceress is riding, and also the armsman. _“They have something in them. The guy and the horse.”_ Ichigo says. _“Not a Hollow, but something that seems like one?”_

“Demons,” Uda says, realizing. “The soldier and the horse both have demons.”

The Royina-Witch smiles up at him from where he’s standing above the gates. “Demon is only a small elemental,” she says, having heard him. “Ser Foix dy Gura is in training as a Temple sorcerer. I am Lady Ista dy Chalion, and my lady in waiting is Annaliss dy Tenerit. Now that we’ve made our introductions, may we have one from you, young lord?” She asks in Ibran.

“Uda Mahut,” Uda says. “As you may know, Your Serenity.”

“And what of your companion?” the Royina-Witch asks calmly.

Uda can’t help the little chill that runs through him at that. “He says his name is Kurosaki Ichigo,” Uda says quietly. “The family name is first.”

“I would like to speak with you both,” Ista dy Chalion says. “Could we arrange an exchange, myself, and my servants for your mother and sisters?”

“It wasn’t my idea,” Uda says quickly, to the tune of silent laughter from Ichigo in his head. “He thought the divines would hurt Mother and my sisters.”

“They won’t be harmed,” the royina promises. “Will you allow them to be exchanged?”

 _“What do I do?”_ Uda asked silently.

 _“I think we can trust her,”_ Ichigo says. _“But I want to make really, really sure your mom and sisters are going to be okay. Ask her if she’ll protect them.”_

The idea of asking a heretic sorceress to protect his family made his head hurt. Ichigo however, wouldn’t be moved on the subject. “He says he wants a counter assurance that you’ll protect my mother and sisters.”

The sorceress frowns up at him. “They won’t come to harm,” she promises.

Uda flashsteps to his mother’s quarters. He finds her reading out loud to Mali, while Raheya sews. “Mother, sisters,” he says with a bow. “Please pack your things. Somehow Father has acquired the services of the Royina-Witch. Ichigo agreed to let you go.”

Mother puts her book down. “And if I don’t wish to go?” she asks calmly.

Her words surprise him. “It would be better if you did,” Uda says. “I’ll be fine, mother.”

“No, Raheya and Mali will go, I will not. Your father will understand.”

Uda tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t be moved. She wasn’t going to leave him alone. She wasn’t going to leave him alone to face whatever rite the Royina-Witch might have planned. _“Give up, you’re not going to win,”_ Ichigo advised, ten minutes into the argument. 

“You agreed to the exchange!” Uda protests out loud. 

_“Yeah, but your mom had other ideas,”_ Ichigo says.

“What is he saying,” Lady Sahria asks.

“He says you can stay,” Uda says, unwillingly.

His sisters also want to stay, but Lady Sahria puts her foot down concerning that. The girls, still protesting, go to pack.

They trail down to the gates, and his sisters are still visibly upset, though his mother is calm. He opens the gates, and joins his mother and sisters as the sorceress and her servants enter into the courtyard. In addition to the serving woman and the one armsman-sorcerer were now several more soldiers. “Couldn’t you use magic to open the gate?” Raheya whispers.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Uda whispers back. 

“It takes two men to move that winch!” Raheya whispers in turn.

Lady Sahria gives them both a quelling look before Uda can reply and steps forward to greet Ista dy Chalion, and welcome her to the castle in accented Ibran. Ista dy Chalion in turn introduces her seneschal, and Uda’s sisters are turned over to his custody, and he and the other armsmen exit through gates. Meanwhile, the sorcerer-armsman dismounts and takes the reins of the demon-horse. The lady begins to dismount, and Uda immediately moves forward to assist.

The instant he makes contact with the heretic-sorceress there’s a bright flash of light, followed by a wave of darkness that pulls him under.

* * *

Ista stumbles over her own feet, full of the conviction she’s going to fall _upward_ somehow, and that she is upside down. She falls to her knees on an overgrown lawn, sees beds of flowers and bushes long overgrown before closing her eyes tightly against the vertigo. A garden, one surrounding the ruins of a temple, the domes fallen in, and trees growing through it. She can hear two voices, arguing in the distance, both young and male. When he head stops spinning, she’ll do something about it, and figure out where she is.

The dizziness doesn’t go away, and some part of her is still convinced she’s about to fall into the sky, even a few minutes later. She gets to her feet slowly, and resolves not to look _up._ The argument is still going on. One voice accusing, the other voice protesting; she can’t quite make out the words. She moves toward the voices. “Hello?” She calls, and the voices go silent for a moment, then one of them swears.

A boy is standing before her then, in the blink of an eye. He has hair the color of autumn leaves, and his warm brown eyes have an almond shape to them. Ista recognizes him as the boy she’d seen the other day, the boy she had seen standing with (within?) the Roknari boy. He wore the same high collared robe and loose pants as before, black with white trim. “Kurosaki Ichigo,” she says, trying out the strange name. “When I said I wanted to speak to you, I did not expect to meet you in person.”

“Neither did I,” Ichigo says with a sort of resigned exasperation. “I guess I should have. Sorry.” He bows.

“Why is she here?” a second voice says. The owner of the second voice is Uda Mahut. He makes an appearance almost as swiftly as Ichigo. “Is this part of the rite?” he asks curiously.

“No,” Ista says. “This has never happened before.”

Ichigo groans. “Of course it hasn’t.” He flops down to the ground, head in his hands. “It never happens before, until it’s me. And then it does happen.”

Uda looks amused, and pokes at the other boy with a foot. Ichigo swats at him, and Uda dodges easily. “ _You’re_ happening to _me_ ,” Uda points out. “It’s not just you this is happening to!”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Ichigo shoots back.

This argument would actually be amusing if Ista weren’t in the middle of it, in an unfamiliar place. “What is this place?” she asks.

“Uda’s inner world,” Ichigo says.

“I still say that’s a falsehood,” Uda mutters. “If I had such a thing, why would it be a Quintarian devil-worshipper temple?”

“Right, because you never repurpose and rededicate temples,” Ichigo says. “And maybe don’t call someone who might be able to help us a _devil-worshiper_.”

“Being a Quadrene, he would consider me a devil-worshiper, since I’m Quintarian,” Ista pointed out calmly. “And especially since my God is the Bastard, who is the master of demons, and god of all things out of season.”

“Are you though?” Ichigo asks. Uda looks like he’s about to say something but subsides at the look the older boy throws him. “I didn’t ask you, I asked her,” Ichigo says. 

“From a Quadrene perspective, yes,” Ista says. “And in the strictest theological sense, and in the sense of simple heredity, for my god is the son of the Mother of Summer, and her champion, a great-souled demon who fought demons in the age of the sorcerers.”

“The Goddess was _defiled_ ,” Uda says, sharp and reflexive. “She was _betrayed_. He got a _vile abomination upon her_.”

Ista took a breath, more than familiar with the Quadrene heresy. She noticed that the older boy, Ichigo, had tensed, plainly not happy with Uda’s words. **“Wow that sounds like some echt-level crap,”** she found herself saying. Startled, she covers her mouth, because that wasn’t any language she knew. **“Okay I _get_ why I’m little brother now.”**

Ichigo plainly did understand the language, because he was staring at her. “Shiro?” he asks, wide eyed.

 **“Yeah. I should back up though,”** Shiro says.

 ** _“Sorry,”_** a voice says in her head. **_“Tell Ichigo I’m here, but the Old Man isn’t. And also I can’t talk to him directly yet. This inner world is somewhere between spirit and matter, but I wasn’t sure it would work…also I’m probably in trouble. Shit.”_** With that, the presence she hadn’t been aware of until he’d spoken through her vanished, briefly drowned out by the amused exasperation of her god as He trailed after the presence. She found she understood a little of what Shiro had been talking about, what he had said to Ichigo, and what it meant. Ista relays what Shiro told her. “Your brother is very worried for you,” Ista says to Ichigo. “And he misses you.” (She has a sense the strange monster-boy would not appreciate her saying that.)

The boy gave her a wicked half-smile. “Did he actually say that? Also, where is he?”

“He’s in the halls of my god,” Ista says. “And he has been frantic to be reunited with you, which I think he wouldn’t want me to say.”

“He wouldn’t,” Ichigo says in confirmation. “He might be a vile abomination and also a complete bastard, but he’s _my_ vile abomination and complete bastard. Technically, he’s also me.” He gives Uda a hard eyed look. The younger boy flushes with embarrassment, and mutters an apology to Ichigo, and to Ista’s surprise, herself. He sits down beside Ichigo. 

“He’s also you?” Ista asks. “He said something about your mother, the second time we spoke. That she had almost died, because of him.” That wasn’t precisely what he’d said, but it was close enough.

Ichigo sighs. “I’m part Shinigami, part Hollow, part Quincy, a Fullbringer and who the hell knows what else,” he says. “I think at this point I can add ‘zanpakuto-spirit’ to the list.”

“Zanpakuto?” Ista asks, trying out the unfamiliar word. (There were so many other unfamiliar words, but this one stood out somehow.)

“It’s a weapon a Shinigami uses to fight Hollows,” Ichigo says. “When a Shinigami begins training, they’re given a special blade called an asauchi that will eventually become their link with their zanpakuto spirit. The spirit is part of their soul, but the spirit also possesses its own personality, motivations and thoughts. Mine is a Hollow because my mother had a Hollow sealed inside her--Ista-san?” Ichigo asked with a frown.

Ista felt herself go cold, remembering Joen, who had an ancient demon sealed inside of her from childhood. (Remembered begging Joen to let go of the demon, let go, and repair the horrors she’d committed upon her princedom and her family.) “Inside her?”

“She was dying. The Hollow was designed to ‘Hollowfy’ Shinigami. She was a Quincy and they don’t Hollowfy,” Ichigo says. “Quincy and Shinigami were mortal enemies, Mom decided to help Dad, who was a Shinigami and her mortal enemy, and almost died from it. Dad was able to save her by giving up his powers as a Shinigami to seal the Hollow. They got married, and when Mom was pregnant with me, I got the Hollow.”

“I see,” Ista says. She doesn’t quite, her mind still numb with the horror of what Joen had done, and the way Ichigo’s story reminded her of it. “You think you might be a ‘zanpakuto’?” Ista asks

Ichigo laughs. “That’s mostly a joke because I’m in this inner world. Uda actually _has_ an inner world and I think almost as much reiatsu as I did when I was alive. I don’t know if Shinigami exist here though, or if there’s a Soul Society. I haven’t sensed anything like a Hollow which I would have expected to show up by now. I started working with him about all the energy he’s putting out. He’s picking it up a lot faster than I did, too. I think he might _be_ the closest thing to a Shinigami.”


	4. Chapter 4

> **Father of Winter: What has been wrought here, Son of my Lady of Summer?**
> 
> **The Bastard: [bowing very low, crow wings extended] Justice, of a kind, Lord of Judges. I was entreated by one in greatest despair so I sent the swiftest of my messengers.**
> 
> **Father of Winter: Justice of a kind, you say, son of my Lady, yet Your messenger sent no judgement. There was no ruling, only an execution, and a poor maiden’s death.**
> 
> **The Bastard: [bowing again] Nor was there a trial, where the judge is false. Without a trial there can be no ruling can there? I am Thy carrion-crow, Lord, and from the gibbet I have seen Justice and Injustice. If I am called in desperation, from one who saw no recourse and was cruelly betrayed, should I not answer?**
> 
> **Father of Winter: Yet Justice resides within Me, however false a judge may be.**
> 
> **The Bastard: I make no claim to the Seat of Judgment, but allow Me to perch upon the back of Your Throne. If I am called I will go. –Dessan dy Rodha, The Tragedy of Lady dy Alors, epilogue scene three**

It had been a shock to hear Shiro’s voice coming from the woman Uda called both a queen and a witch. Not _just_ the voice, her whole expression and body language had changed. It had been Shiro’s smirk, on the woman’s face, Shiro’s body language, though the smirk had been tempered by a desperate kind of relief. It had shaken Ichigo, the look Shiro had given him. Ichigo had so many questions, and very few of them had been answered.

The worst had been hearing that the Old Man was gone. He had felt the part of Ywhach that had lived in his inner world for his entire life ripped away to join with the original, he thought he had heard the Old Man scream his name. He had dreamed it, in the strange state he was in. He didn’t want to show the grief he felt, but Ista seemed to see right through him.

“I am sorry for your loss,” she says. “Your brother shares your grief. There was little my God could do to comfort him.”

There was something gentle and sympathetic, but also wry in her tone. It surprises a laugh out of Ichigo. _Comfort_ was not something Ichigo could imagine Shiro accepting from anyone. “He tried to beat him up, didn’t he.” He doesn’t argue with the word _brother_. The Hollow was a part of him. The Hollow was also distinctly himself.

Ista gives him a crooked sort of smile. “He seemed very determined to try. _Have_ you fought gods before?”

“People who thought they were pretty close to being gods,” Ichigo says. He almost laughs again at the look Uda is sending his way. _Fought gods?_ Uda mouths. Ichigo shrugs.

“People with a great deal of hubris,” Ista notes.

“How does a being of simple matter become a ‘god’?” Uda asks. “As spirit must be allowed access to matter, so matter cannot touch the world of the spirit.”

“Heh. They weren’t beings of matter to begin with,” Ichigo says. “It was different where I’m from. Spirit could touch ‘matter,’ but ‘matter’ usually wasn’t even aware of spirit and couldn’t interact with it unless they were really sensitive.” Ichigo talks about Shinigami and Hollows, and meeting Rukia. He talks about becoming a “deputy Shinigami” and Aizen, and having to rescue Rukia. He talks about defeating Aizen and losing his powers, then getting them back. He talks about the arrancar, about Nel and Grimmjow, he talks about the Quincy attack and Ywhach. “I felt everything fall apart. Everything went dark,” Ichigo says as he comes to the end of the story. “Then I woke up here.” He sweeps his hands out to indicate the inner world. “Every once in a while I could see the outside world, but I couldn’t really communicate with Uda at first.”

“It was very strange,” Uda says. “I was having dreams of a strange world. Sometimes I would be fighting terrible beasts, sometimes I would be fighting sorcerers armed with magical weapons. I did not always know where I was, and I started seeing ghosts.”

“The ghosts here are really creepy,” Ichigo interjects. “They don’t talk at all and they’re blurred around the edges, or just foggy lumps. Also no chains.”

“If you think lack of chains is creepy,” Uda mutters back. “I don’t want to know what actually creepy is to you.” This plainly deserves elbowing, so Ichigo does just that. Uda looks offended; Ista looks amused for a moment, then serious.

“Souls cut off from the world of spirit deteriorate in the world of matter,” Ista says quietly. “It is a slow and gentle damnation.”

Ista’s words send a trail of ice down his spine. He might end up like that. Would it be better or worse than Hollowfying? Would he even be able to Hollowfy since Shiro wasn’t here? “I understand,” Ichigo says. “Maybe I’ll end up in Shiro’s head instead of him in mine.”

“Surely one of the gods will take you up,” Uda says. It’s the same argument he’s been making since he saw his first ghost. “You are as much aligned with the Son of Autumn as I am. I will make prayers and give offerings that He take you up.”

Ichigo shakes his head. “Kid, you’ve also said that sorcerers are damned. Shiro isn’t really my brother. He’s a part of me. I might end up in ‘the Bastard’s hell’ or I might just end fading in ‘the world of matter’ it might be the second since I’m already separated from him.”

Uda gives him a stubborn look. “You should not be damned, to fade or go to the Bastard’s Hell,” he insists.

“I don’t believe my god intends you to fade away,” Ista says. “I am also not sure that exorcism is the best course of action here. Partly because of the unknown condition of your soul, but also because of the state of your ‘brother’s.’”

“So what does that mean?” Ichigo asks.

“It means I need to think,” Ista says, and fades from view.

* * *

Ista awakens slowly. The room and the bed are unfamiliar, but in a familiar way. There is an armoire in the corner, and a vanity. Near the bed by a curtained window are two chairs and a table. Ista sees that Liss has fallen asleep in one of them, head tilted at an angle that her lady’s maid was going to regret. “Liss,” Ista calls quietly. Her voice sounds like one of the Bastard’s own crows right now. “Liss, wake up,” she says a little more loudly.

Liss snorts, a bit like a horse, and starts awake. “Royina, you’re awake!” she says. “How do you feel?”

“A little thirsty, and hungry,” Ista says, pushing herself up into a sitting position. “How long was I asleep?”

“Not long Royina, it’s only three hours after noon,” Liss says. She stretches, and rubs ruefully at her neck.

“Where is Uda?” Ista asks. “What happened to him, when I collapsed?”

“He collapsed as well,” Liss says. “He’s in his room, being tended by his mother.”

Ista nods. She had thought as much, but wanted to confirm it. The dream had felt real. It had felt in a strange way, like that dream-place where she sometimes found herself when speaking to her god. An upside down ruined Quintarian temple, the gardens around it overgrown after years of neglect. It was an odd sort of imagery for a Quadrene boy to have. She thinks about it as Liss helps her with her clothes and hair.

They were debating whether to allow Liss to go get food or see the boy and his mother first, but Lady Sahria solves the issue by coming to Ista with watered wine, bread, cheese, hard boiled eggs and olives. “Royina,” Lady Sahria says in heavily accented Ibran. “Uda said you might be awake, so I brought you something to break your fast.”

“Thank you, lady,” Ista says. The tray’s placed on a table near the chair, where Ista sits.

“I apologize for what happened. He says what happened was not intentional,” Lady Sahria says.

Ista smiles. “I could see that it wasn’t,” she says. She hesitated a moment, wondering how much to say, or if she should say anything. “They were as clearly upset about it as I was.”

“You spoke to them,” Sahria says. Her tone is warily curious. “Both?”

“In a kind of dream,” Ista says. “I spoke to both your son and the spirit inside of him, in hopes I might learn more of their nature.”

“What did you learn?” Lady Sahria asks. 

“I learned that your son and the spirit are both very brave young men,” Ista says. “The spirit—Ichigo--is willing to have me exorcise him, but there are difficulties. The spirit is a ghost, not a demon, and Uda worries for the state of the spirit’s soul, as do I. The spirit in turn worries for Uda’s life.”

Lady Sahria frowns. “What becomes of the spirit, if you exorcise him?” she asks.

“I’m not sure. Ghosts separated from the matter of their bodies, which do not go to their god, or have no god slowly fade. It is a quiet damnation. If no other god takes him up, my god may…or he may fade over time. Your son has become quite attached to Ichigo, and while he hopes that the spirit goes to the Son of Autumn, he fears that Ichigo will be severed if I perform the exorcism.”

“He said as much when he awoke,” Lady Sahria says. A slight smile blooms across the woman’s face. “Well, it wasn’t said as much as he awoke arguing. ‘I won’t let you die either!’ he said. Then he saw me, and pretended he hadn’t been speaking to the spirit out loud.”

“Does he often speak to the spirit?” Ista asks.

Lady Sahria nods. “He says he tries to speak silently, but there’s often an intent look on his face, as if he were listening, and his lips will move.”

“Does the spirit ever appear to be entirely ascendant?”

“He was _extremely_ ascendant when he drove my husband, the priests and all of the servants out of the fort,” Lady Sahria says dryly. “I don’t think he did anyone lasting harm though.”

“From what I learned from the divines, and your husband, he didn’t,” Ista confirms. “What about when you first suspected possession, or afterward when he drove everyone out?”

“When Uda was ill he often seemed confused, he’d say strange things or speak some language his tutor wasn’t able to identify. He also started showing strange powers, but there was never really a moment where the spirit seemed completely ascendant, except at the point where he--” Lady Sahria stopped, her voice uneven with emotion. “The spirit said he wouldn’t let us burn Uda. That was the only point where he truly seemed to take over. Thereafter, he would allow Uda to translate what he said, but would not himself speak.”

Ista nodded thoughtfully. “This is a very unusual case, my lady,” Ista says. “I have never encountered a exactly situation like this.” She smiled slightly. “Though that could be said of any demon possession. Each exorcism is unique, with its own complications…but this one is especially unusual.”

Lady Sahria nods, cautiously. “I know nothing of ghosts or demons. However…I find I am grateful to Ichigo for preventing us from burning our son.” She took a breath. “I think I am no more willing to risk the ghost’s damnation than Uda or yourself, Royina. Is there anything that can be done?” She swallows. “Your tame sorcerer seemed polite and overall honorable.”

Liss coughs in an attempt to hide a laugh. .

“Liss,” Ista says with gentle reproof. Sahria’s question, implying an alternative no good Quadrene would consider cried as loudly as a trumpet to Ista. If the Quadrene woman took offense, she might retract that hopeful question.

“Forgive me, Royina, Lady Sahria,” Liss murmurs, and tries very hard to be the demure lady in waiting. Her eyes however are dancing. Ista suspects that Foix is going to be teased about his bear, at some point tonight.

To Ista’s relief, Lady Sahria takes not offense. Instead she looks between them, with the inquiring look of a woman who wants to be let in on the joke. “Not tame then?” She asks with the faintest of smiles. 

“What young man would want to be called ‘tame’?” Ista asks a little humorously. Liss makes another noise that is not quite a laugh. “Young dy Gura is an able soldier and a fine officer, formerly of the Daughter’s Order before his misfortunate encounter with a bear in possession of a demon. Fortunately, he possesses the mental and emotional fortitude to work with his demon without being in turn destroyed by it.”

Lady Sahria seemed to steel herself for her next question. “I should not ask such a question, but I fear that I already stand on the cliffs of apostasy. What happens when a sorcerer is judged capable of controlling their demon?”

“They’re trained by divines of the Temple of the Bastard,” Ista says. “They are trained in how to best use the chaotic powers of a demon, and the ethics of using their powers.” Ista smiles. “As an example, there’s a quite humorous parable--based on a true story I’m told--about a young sorcerer who sought to rid a man of a plague of vermin, only to discover that the afflicted man viewed the creatures as his pets.”

“The moral being ‘make sure you have permission before working your magic’ I would guess?” Lady Sahria says, with a little laugh.

Ista nods. “Dy Gura is still early in his training, but was forced into an unusual amount of discipline by the Dowager Princess of Jokona.”

“He was one of the sorcerer slaves of the Dowager Princess?” Sahria asks.

“Very briefly. He was there when I exorcised Joen’s demon, and her sorcerer-slaves.”

“It’s said she died,” Sahria says quietly. “It’s said that you, royina, killed her.”

“She wouldn’t let go,” Ista says, letting the grief and pain she still felt live in her voice. “If she had realized what horror she was committing against her family, if she had repented and let the demon go, I could have saved her. But she held tight to the demon, certain it would make her dreams come true, and she was damned, taken with the demon.”

Lady Sahria is silent for a few minutes. “What happens when one of your temple trained sorcerers dies? Doesn’t the demon seek a new rider?”

“It’s given a new rider, usually one who has been selected and trained for the purpose. Sometimes, however, the demon will pick someone other than the one chosen for it,” Ista says. “I am not sure how it would work for a spirit like Ichigo, who is a ghost.”

* * *

The sorcerer who came with the royina told interesting stories. He had been a officer-dedicat in the Quintarian Daughter’s Order, and had been in the service of the Royina for some time. Before that, he had apparently accompanied a saint on a mission to relieve the Chalionese royal family of a curse. Uda relayed questions from Ichigo over a luncheon of bread, cheese, olives and watered wine. Ichigo seemed fascinated by the sorcerer. _“It’s interesting,”_ Ichigo says. _“Is he more like a Visored, or an arrancar? Probably not a Shinigami or a Fullbringer. I mean, I realize he isn’t like any of those things, but I’m reaching for comparisons here.”_

The sorcerer seems just as curious about Ichigo, asking questions about Ichigo’s life and his home. “There’s a lot of things I can’t explain very well,” Uda says at one point. How do you explain _television_? How do you explain _train schedules_ or _computers_ and _cell phones_? “There are things that don’t have direct parallels.”

“And things I have no doubt ser Ichigo has no wish to explain,” dy Gura says with a smile.

 _“Hey, don’t make it sound like I’m being suspicious!”_ Ichigo says indignantly. Uda can’t repress the snicker. Dy Gura laughs as well when Uda explains.

“I mean no insult,” dy Gura says. “There’s a number of things I could never say, lest I be thought mad, so I hardly blame him. What can you tell me about him, with the closest parallels?”

“It sounds like a tale,” Uda says. “His father was a physician, a former officer of some sort of royal guard, and a noble. His mother was a saint, one would think of the Mother, but she seems more of the Daughter. She was his sworn enemy, but she rescued him, and in turn was in need of rescuing. He knew nothing of this until another saint entered his home seeking a monster and she somehow gave him her powers to defeat it.” Uda continues the story, describing Ichigo’s friends, his enemies, his enemies who ended up also being his allies and so on, with asides from Ichigo.

“He is a good person,” Uda says as he winds down, the story in all its detail (as much as he under stood) had taken a few hours. His mother, the sorceress-royina and her lady in waiting had come into the room, though at what point he wasn’t certain. His mother looked sad and uneasy, the sorceress and her maid calm. “He is a warrior, but that is not all he is.” _I would want a brother like him,_ he thinks. He is absolutely not going to say it out loud. “I would not have him be damned to the silence of a ghost, royina,” he says to the sorceress-royina. “Can you help him?”

 _“You’re making me sad, kid. Stop it,”_ Ichigo says silently.

“You’re concerned for him, and not yourself?” the royina asks with a somehow unexpectedly kind look.

“Myself as well as him,” Uda says. “But it’s said that you can remove demons without harming the one exorcised, so I would have little to worry about, compared to Ichigo.”

“What if there were another option,” his mother says. She speaks hesitantly, uncertainly.

“What option?” Uda asks, looking between his mother and the sorceress.

“The Quintarians,” Mother hesitates. “They train their sorcerers. Teach them how to control their demons.”

“He isn’t--” Uda begins to protest.

“I realize that Uda,” Mother says, a slight edge in her tone. “Yet whatever he is, he is too strong, according to the royina to be a ghost.”

When Uda nods his understanding, abashed, Mother continues. “The Quintarians train their sorcerers, and the royina says that this could be an option for you as well.”

“To become Quintarian?” Uda asks, his voice squeaking a bit. “What would Father say?”

“You needn’t become Quintarian,” the royina says quietly. “I would tutor you, and my spiritual conductor. But I hardly think you would need the same training a temple sorcerer would receive. Ichigo is not a demon, but a young man.”

“Not to say young men don’t need training,” dy Gura says, amused.

“I would…have to go with you,” Uda says. A feeling somewhat akin to both excitement and fear runs through him. He’d be surrounded by people not his own faith, but it would also be an adventure. The kind of adventure he never could have anticipated. “Accompany you on your journey.” 

The royina nods. “We’ll be travelling back to Chalion. There are a number of divines and saints I’d like to speak to, considering your and Ichigo’s unique situation .”

“It’s your decision, Uda,” Mother says. “But…I would no more risk having Ichigo fade than you would, my son.”

 _“I don’t know what to do,”_ Uda says silently to Ichigo.

_“It really is up to you. I don’t want to die, but also I don’t want your life to be ruined because of me.”_

_“You really aren’t ruining my life,”_ Uda says.

 _“Stake. Burning,”_ Ichigo says flatly.

“Why are you like this?” Uda mutters to Ichigo, this time out loud. “I’m surprised you didn’t say anything about training or being controlled.”

 _“You probably shouldn’t have been,”_ Ichigo says, sounding amused now and a little smug. _“I had to fight my ‘brother’ every step of the way for control, when I wasn’t fighting the Old Man or just plain fighting to use my powers. If you really want this, I have no intention of going easy on you.”_

Did he want this? Uda took a breath and thought about it. Thought about how Ichigo sounded half teasing and half challenging. Thought of how it would feel if that voice was gone (as annoying as it could be sometimes). Thought especially about traveling, leaving the fort and its familiar walls. He looks up at his mother, and says, “then I’ll travel with the royina, and learn what I can.”


End file.
